by Robert Scheer, TruthDig.com, Dec  2, 2009

I was at a fascinating Afghanistan conference on Friday and Saturday at the USC/Annenberg Center for Communication Leadership and Policy. The hosts, Geoff Cowan and Derek Shearer called in a lot of chits and so the participants were an extraordinary group of policy advisors including Ambassadors Mort Abramowitz and Peter Galbraith, Admiral William Fallon, General Wesley Clark and State Department’s Jeremy Curtin. And because the main focus was on the media and the war we heard CNN’s Bill Schneider, NPR’s Mike Shuster and the LA Times Marjorie Miller , McClatchy’s Roy Gutmann and Truth Dig’s Robert Scheer.

During the course of the two days  I kept thinking , “I sure hope President Obama is getting such a frank discussion of the perils of Empire in Afghanistan.” Even the military men were highly skeptical of a counter-insurgency strategy in a country as big and as resistant to foreign occupation as Pakistan. Ambassador Galbraith laid out in stunning detail how Karzai’s minions on the election commission stole the first round election–a theft so bold as would make old Boss Tweed turn over in his grave. It was clear that nothing was going to change in a second round and so Abdullah’s withdrawal was just an acknowledgement of what everyone at the UN already knew.

As for the press, Mike Shuster answered my question of why the MSM was such a prisoner of the “conventional wisdom”, cheerleading us into the Iraq War–”Reporters were intimidated by the power of administration sources.” It took Bob Scheer to ask the big question which even now many of the foreign correspondents seem loath to ask–”Why are we in Afghanistan and is our vast military empire making us more or less secure?”

In a time of Trillion dollar deficits and 30 million Americans unemployed or underemployed, I think the nation building has to be done in America not Afghanistan.

The USC College Republicans sponsored (with the help of Campus Security) an ugly little bit of hypocrisy last night. David Horowitz, the right wing thug who runs the infamous academic blacklist (above) called Discover the Networks at the Horowitz “Freedom” Center, gave a speech to the Republican’s on campus. Needless to say, the hall was not filled, but for some reason, campus security kept quite a few students who didn’t agree with Horowitz out of the hall. The ones who did get in, were thrown out once they began their silent protest.

Heather Larabee, the assistant dean of students and director of Campus Activities said students were removed because they had disrupted the event. “They were blocking the views of people behind them, so that’s why they were asked to leave. Had they stood up silently and in the back rows, Horowitz would have been able to see them and that would have been fine,” she said.

Horowitz of course has an Alice in Wonderland view of all of this, claiming his academic freedom is being impinged because a few students stood up to protest his hate speech.

Horowitz said the groups protesting the College Republicans’ event and attempting to obstruct the speaker they invited should be put on probation for “a heinous assault on USC students. The administration itself is allowing this fascist attempt at free speech … to defile College Republicans,” he said, calling the protestors “lunatics the university refuses to discipline.”

Horowitz’s Discover the Network site has already put several USC professors including Annenberg’s Robert Scheer on his blacklist. The handy tool provided above allows College Conservatives to submit their own professors as candidates for the blacklist, which Horowitz promises to “research, compile and add to our resource.” The professors would then join other blacklisted “radicals” such as Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, religion scholar Karen Armstrong, University of Michigan Middle East scholar Juan Cole and a list of 500 others.

The very notion that the USC administration would cooperate with Horowitz’s Brownshirt tactics and assertions is an embarrassment.

Take Action on Oct. 24: Join One of the Largest Global Protests in the Fight Against Climate Change by Tim Kingston, AlterNet.

On Oct. 24, tens of thousands of people will be in the streets and on mountains, rivers and glaciers around the world demanding action to reduce CO2 emissions.

What started out a couple of years ago as a idea promoted by author/climate-change activist Bill McKibben and a few students at Vermont’s Middlebury College has morphed into the biggest environmental, and possibly the most extensive worldwide protest, ever.

On Oct. 24, tens of thousands of people will be in the streets and on mountains, rivers and glaciers around the world demanding action to reduce CO2 emissions to 350 parts per million (ppm).

With just five days to go, 3,422 events are planned or under way in 160 nations on every continent, including Antarctica. More are coming online daily at 350.org, a small (seven staffers) organization based in Berkeley, Calif., that is coordinating the international day of action.

Organizers of the event are targeting the United Nations Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December. They hope the international day of action will apply pressure on the assembled heads of state and governments to reduce global greenhouse gas CO2 emissions to below 350 ppm, the number that scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  READ MORE:

http://www.alternet.org/action/143365/take_action_on_oct._24%3A_join_one_of_the_largest_global_protests_in_the_fight_against_climate_change

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) Humbles Hudson Institute Dilettante Over Health Care Bankruptcies AlterNet.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/#143452

Dept of Homeland Security Expands Controversial Program Empowering Local Police By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!

The 287(g) program gives local law enforcement authority to enforce federal immigration laws, which has led to accusations of racial profiling.

AMY GOODMAN: The immigration debate is heating up on Capitol Hill, and the Department of Homeland Security said Friday it plans to enter into new agreements with sixty-seven state and local law enforcement agencies. These agreements expand the existing 287(g) program, which delegates some federal immigration enforcement authority to certain state and local agencies. The announcement comes shortly after DHS released a report on immigrant detention noting the vast majority of those detained under the 287(g) agreements were never charged with a criminal offense. The 287(g) program has come under intense criticism in recent months from over 500 organizations, including the ACLU, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, calling on the government to end the program. Many of the agencies involved have been accused of racial profiling, and the Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio in Phoenix, Arizona, is being investigated by the Justice Department.

On Friday the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE, said it would go forward with a new jails agreement with Sheriff Arpaio but remove his field authority to enforce federal immigration laws on the street. Well, that didn’t stop the Sheriff, and he conducted his twelfth so-called immigration sweep Friday, arresting some sixty people. The Sheriff defended his stance on Fox’s Glenn Beck Show earlier last week.  READ MORE:

http://www.alternet.org/immigration/143372/dept_of_homeland_security_expands_controversial_program_empowering_local_police

The Battle Against Letting Wall Street Continue to Make a Killing on Derivatives By Art Levine, AlterNet.

Protections for consumers and Wall Street’s skullduggery are at stake in an obscure series of hearings going on in Congress right now.

Early in the morning, outside the House Financial Services Committee hearing room in the Rayburn office building last week, there were scruffy ex-homeless and other low-income folks, wearing their dreadlocks or sloppy jeans, mixed in with the pinstriped reps for the financial industry.

 They all seemed to be lining up to see what $223 million in financial lobbying in the first six months of this year could buy in thwarting real reform on Capitol Hill. And they were hoping to get the few dozen of the public seats available inside the room, for a critical 10 a.m. hearing marking up a bill that was supposed to regulate the now-private market in complex “derivatives.”

Those derivatives are nominally worth at least $450 trillion worldwide, with $555 billion in credit at risk in the U.S. banking industry. (Derivatives are forms of insurance or bets on underlying assets, such as now-toxic subprime mortgages, supposedly designed to manage risk.) No wonder Warren Buffett called them “financial weapons of mass destruction.”  READ MORE:

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/143407/the_battle_against_letting_wall_street_continue_to_make_a_killing_on_derivative

This Year’s Biggest Hoax Is Tim Geithner’s ‘Solution’ for the Economy, Not the Balloon Boy By Robert Scheer, Truthdig.

If we could get one of the banking lobbyists to float a duct-taped flying saucer balloon, Wolf Blitzer might cover the real hoax.

Who are these people? I am not referring to the pathetic parents of “Balloon Boy,” whose fake drama I have been unable to escape while on the treadmill this week, thanks to my gym’s insistence on tuning its flat-screen TVs to Wolf Blitzer’s nonstop self-parody.

The Colorado incident was significant only in the tawdriness of those who perpetrated the made-for-TV scam and their allies in the mindless media who covered this sham “reality” so relentlessly. But even so, it was enough to push aside most consideration of the true hoax reported last week with far less fervor: the obscene rewards that Wall Street bankers bestowed upon themselves for ripping off our economy.

The people I want to know more about are the superrich who expect to be rewarded for their failures, like the folks at Goldman Sachs who will receive $16.71 billion in bonuses—an average of $530,000 per employee—this year after their company did as much as any to bring the world economy to the brink of disaster.

“The Guys from Government Sachs” is what The New York Times once called them in recognition of their chokehold on the federal government. Their power is marked by the two treasury secretaries who led the fight to legally enable and then reward Wall Street for its obscene excesses. Why wasn’t there a CNN stakeout at the homes of former Goldman-execs-turned-treasury-chiefs Robert Rubin and Henry Paulson aimed at finding out how they feel about the almost $7 billion profit that Goldman Sachs made in the last two quarters in the wake of the government’s bailout of the firm?

http://www.alternet.org/media/143433/this_year%27s_biggest_hoax_is_tim_geithner%27s_%27solution%27_for_the_economy%2C_not_the_balloon_boy

When I get excited about something, I have to write about it. Today, I just had to write about this blog called TruthDig because of Robert Scheer’s column entitled, “Zooming In on the Year’s Biggest Hoax.” It dawned on me that I check this site pretty regularly. I took a few notes to list the reasons why.

Here are seven reasons why I enjoy TruthDig:

• Email Updates. Call me old-fashioned, but the first thing I check when I log into my computer is my email. (It’s my main form of communication with my clients. It’s also where my mom scans and sends me print articles, because she no longer mails them to me.) Truthdig sends me a weekly review of its blogposts with catchy—and sometimes sensational—headlines, and when I’m in the mood to procrastinate on my ever-growing to-do list, I click on one and get caught up in the conversation.

• Setting Up The Argument. Scheer, Chris Hedges and others on the team can set up a good argument. They get to the point in the first paragraph and they lay it out in sequence with smooth and entertaining transitions throughout the rest of the story. (This style of writing has been poopooed by bloggers as “uninspired and artless”, but I still feel that it’s quite effective for getting to (and making) the point with its core readership.) It’s the upside-down pyramid style typically used by journalists and it incorporates other tools that have historically earned journalists their accolades. Take a look at this great lede:

“It’s now clear that health care ‘reform’ is a bonanza for the insurance companies. But these acquisitive businesses want even more. Their efforts to increase their profits are at the center of the clandestine Senate and House negotiations currently shaping the health bill.” – Bill Boyarski, “Healthcare Reform Insurance Companies Can Believe In.” Oct. 19, 2009.

• Research & Sourcing Additional Voices. In my (own unresearched) opinion, many print journalists started to cut corners on their reporting as they were forced to compete with the internet’s rolling (in contrast to, say, daily) deadlines. TruthDig and similar newsblogs shifted from covering breaking-news to reporting on context–the backbone of a story. TruthDig.com created a new platform for reasoned discussion with its simple mantra to “respect the story and present it in a clear way.” How’s this for context:

“Other than the United States, Turkey has been probably the most important of Israel’s allies, informal or otherwise. It is Muslim; it possesses the most democratic government of all the present-day Muslim states. Its major military and political links are with NATO, the United States and Western Europe. It has provided an important market for Israeli goods and a source of useful military exchanges. It sees itself as a modernizing state, allied with the West.” – William Pfaff, “Turkish Cooperation—and Coffee—in Short Supply for Israel,” Oct. 20, 2009.

• Passion. Sometimes, passion can get in the way of presenting a story in a clear way. But these folks are not afraid to show disgust, shock and astonishment without compromising the integrity of their voice, their position, and the information they share. Here’s an example:

“[The ‘Balloon Boy’ drama] was enough to push aside most consideration of the true hoax reported last week with far less fervor: the obscene rewards that Wall Street bankers bestowed upon themselves for ripping off our economy.” – Robert Scheer, “Zooming In on the Year’s Biggest Hoax,” Oct. 20, 2009.

• Guts. The folks who write for TruthDig aren’t afraid to be placed in the middle of the news to get close enough to the real story. Take Amy Goodman, news anchor for Democracy Now! (who contributes regularly to TruthDig). She and some other members of the Democracy Now! team were arrested while covering the Republican National Convention:

“I said, ‘Sir, I just want to speak to a commanding officer. My reporters are inside.’ They’ve got their ID. I mean, we’ve done this in New York, as well, when there is confusion about a reporter. They immediately grabbed me, handcuffed me—and as you haven’t quite talked about, those plastic handcuffs cut right into your wrist, and they make those tight—pushed me to the ground.” Amy Goodman, “Amy Goodman & Two Democracy Now! Producers Arrested at RNC Protest.” Sept. 2, 2008. (TruthDig shared the news with its readers.)

• Comments. I love reading blog readers’ comments. TruthDig’s readers’ commentary range from the wild and ruthless, to reasonable and revolutionary.

• Length of Story & Variety. TruthDig’s columns are on the lengthy side, even for some print publications, who will probably give talented writers as Scheer, Goodman and Pfaff enough space for 800 words, but still prefer for opinion pieces to stay closer to the 700-word range. This all relates to being true to the integrity of the story. But I recently learned at a bloggers’ conference that most blog readers tend not to read past the first 300 words. For those folks who still like their news on the run, TruthDig offers up summary opinions on other news, too. Take the “Studios to Stars: No Twitter for You,” (Oct. 19, 2009) summary by Kasia Anderson, which clocks in at less than 100 words.

Call me old-fashioned but I still read a good story from beginning to end. In my humble opinion, TruthDig can break the silly 300-word rule all it wants.

Cynthia Thomet is the founder of Cyn PR, LLC, a communications consultancy for nonprofit organizations that advance positive change, including Akaku: Maui Community Television. She learned about TruthDig and met Robert Scheer, who was the keynote speaker, at the 2009 Media Justice Conference in Hawaii.

to start off, here’s billy bragg & our best friend in congress senator bernie sanders (I-VT) on the war in afghanistan and it’s escalation.

what is occurring right now in afghanistan should have all those aligning themselves on the left outraged.  and, it apparently doesn’t.  and, consequently, that has ME outraged.  if mccain was “the war candidate”, why is this happening?  oh right, this is the “good” war.  another way to look at it is this is where empires go to die.  greeks, romans, persians, mongols, ottamans, british, soviets…and now apparetnly the u.s.  in his article afghanistan for dummies, ray mcgovern states “I’ve seen this Afghanistan movie before. The first time, Vietnam was in the title.”  david swanson points out that this looks frighteningly similar to that “3rd term” the obamites warned progressive independents who refused to settle for the lesser of two evils about should mccain get elected.  obama stated his intent to close guantanamo (and praise to him for that), but apparetnly has just replaced it with bagram in afghanistan.

in obama’s meaningless war, robert scheer states “our bloody attempt to conquer this foreign land has nothing to do with its stated purpose of enhancing our national security”.  yes, a military response was necessary after 9/11.  however, the previous administration screwed it all up in a variety of ways – mainly attempting to conquer the country unilaterly instead of a multilateral force focused on strictly arresting osama bin laden, dismantling the taliban & al-qaeda (all of which have their roots in failed 80’s u.s. foreign policy, i.e. the chickens coming home to roost), as well as indiscriminate bombing campaigns that took countless innocent lives & caused massive displacements, turning universal goodwill toward the u.s. into outrage seemingly overnight.  but, of course, the greatest screw-up of all was the most pointless war of all, in iraq.

and so now obama has decided that it’s his job to fix afghanistan.  but, it’s too late.  the previous administration dropped the ball – to put it mildly – and this is simply a war that is not winnable or that will have any end in sight.  and unfortunately for the people of britain whom billy bragg spoke on behalf of in the video, they’re along for the ride again, and making the same mistakes, again.   defense secretary robert gates is trying sell this “winnable strategy“, i.e. counterinsurgency, to the public, but it simply doesn’t add up.  one point he makes is “it worked in iraq”.  really?  it did?  then why are so many troops still there?  why hasn’t the withdrawl occurred?  and, also the massive difference between iraq and afghanistan is not being taken into account.  afghanistan is not a middle eastern – but rather a central asian – nation that is made up of several ethnic groups who’ve been fighting for thousands of years and never once had a strong central government.  though, they do seem to have a few things in common, i.e. a growing counter-counterinsurgency blamed on islamic radicalism but more realistically just frustrations of real people who’ve lost loved ones, had their homes blown up, incurred personal injuries, and feel attacked by a foreign enemy – and it’s only exacerbated by the continued military presence.  noam chomsky speaks about the forgotten casualties of afghanistan in the boston review.  just take a second to think objectively.  if china started bombing random american locations, and you and your loved ones were impacted, what would your reaction be?  rage.  it’s only natural.  and our government seems to be hell bent on making that rage overflow.

of course, it only makes matters worse that the u.s. congress has now shown that it will kowtow to the president in matters of war, regardless of party affiliation.  in the congress & afghanistan: rubber-stamping yet another war? howard friel points out “Congress failed to exercise a fundamental constitutional obligation to check—rather than rubber-stamp—the president’s authority to take the country to war. Under the U.S. Constitution, the Congress has the power to declare war, while the president has authority to conduct war once declared. In modern practice, the Congress has simply consented to the president’s wars, as reflected in the resolutions cited above, which the president then conducted with funds rubber-stamped (again) by Congress.”

it’s mind boggling that anyone out there still has the stupidity to think that a democratic president and democratic congress will do anything toward actually progressing this nation beyond a power hungry empire with a foreign policy based solely on total global domination.

Robert Scheer, SF Gate, September 3, 2009

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/02/EDE419HPL5.DTL#ixzz0Q20jWnL8

American photographer Julien Bryan arrived in Warsaw by train on September 7, 1939, two days after the Polish government and the Yank press corps had exited the capital and just two days before the city was cut off by advancing German forces. Bryan spent his nights huddled with others in the American embassy basement; by day, shooting for the next two weeks, “I had the siege of Warsaw all to myself,” he later wrote, “but I wasn’t too happy about it.”

The photo was taken after a strafing by Stukas on September 14. In it, a 10-year-old girl mourns her younger sister, who was killed in the attack. Recalled Bryan, the elder sibling “leaned down and touched the dead girl’s face and drew back in horror. ‘Oh my beautiful sister,’ she wailed, ‘What have they done to you?’”

Bryan exited Warsaw on September 21. The German army entered the city on September 30. World War II was one month old.

Error: The dead girl is in fact 10-year-old Kazimiera Mika’s older sister.

Perhaps not as well known as that other picture of children caught up in the horrors of a murderous and cowardly attack from the air, but every bit as telling.

For more photos by Julien Bryan of this incident and a commentary in Spanish (don’t worry if you don’t read Spanish, the pictures tell the whole story), click here.

Warning: Some readers may find these pictures distressing.

World War II: 70 Years and We’re Still Fighting

Truthdig, September 1, 2009

The Germans invaded Poland on this day 70 years ago, and so began what many consider the greatest conflict in human history. An estimated 60 million people would die, including 27 million Soviets and 12 million Jews, Gypsies, gays and other victims of the Nazi holocaust. Most of the dead were civilians.

The war radically altered the cultures of its participants and the map of the world. It created two superpowers that would fight over the ashes of Europe and the kingdoms of Asia for a generation.

World War II continues to captivate, though it has become a tragic pop culture caricature (with a few notable exceptions). The nightmares of combat are now fodder for dozens of video games while Hollywood has made an art—and business—of flag-waving. Heroism and glory survive in our cultural memory better than fire bombings and ovens and the countless horrors of war. Perhaps that’s why we have had so many since. —PS

Related: The BBC reports on Poland’s commemoration of the anniversary. Truthdig contributor and WWII veteran Gore Vidal on empire and history. Daniel Ellsberg reflects on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Chris Hedges writes on the horrors of war. Robert Scheer on the permanent war economy.

Truthdig.com, Posted on July 7, 2009

AP photo

President Lyndon B. Johnson, right, confers with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in November 1963.

By Robert Scheer

Why not speak ill of the dead?

Robert McNamara, who died this week, was a complex man—charming even, in a blustery way, and someone I found quite thoughtful when I interviewed him. In the third act of his life he was often an advocate for enlightened positions on world poverty and the dangers of the nuclear arms race. But whatever his better nature, it was the stark evil he perpetrated as secretary of defense that must indelibly frame our memory of him.

To not speak out fully because of respect for the deceased would be to mock the memory of the millions of innocent people McNamara caused to be maimed and killed in a war that he later freely admitted never made any sense. Much has been made of the fact that he recanted his support for the war, but that came 20 years after the holocaust he visited upon Vietnam was over.

Is holocaust too emotionally charged a word? How many millions of dead innocent civilians does it take to qualify labels like holocaust, genocide or terrorism? How many of the limbless victims of his fragmentation bombs and land mines whom I saw in Vietnam during and after the war? Or are America’s leaders always to be exempted from such questions? Perhaps if McNamara had been held legally accountable for his actions, the architects of the Iraq debacle might have paused.

Instead, McNamara was honored with the Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson, to whom he had written a private memo nine months earlier offering this assessment of their Vietnam carnage: “The picture of the world’s greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one.”

He knew it then, and, give him this, the dimensions of that horror never left him. When I interviewed him for the Los Angeles Times in 1995, after the publication of his confessional memoir, his assessment of the madness he had unleashed was all too clear:

“Look, we dropped three to four times the tonnage on that tiny little area as were dropped by the Allies in all of the theaters in World War II over a period of five years. It was unbelievable. We killed—there were killed—3,200,000 Vietnamese, excluding the South Vietnamese military. My God! The killing, the tonnage—it was fantastic. The problem was that we were trying to do something that was militarily impossible—we were trying to break the will; I don’t think we can break the will by bombing short of genocide.”

We—no, he—couldn’t break their will because their fight was for national independence. They had defeated the French and would defeat the Americans who took over when French colonialists gave up the ghost. The war was a lie from the first. It never had anything to do with the freedom of the Vietnamese (we installed one tyrant after another in power), but instead had to do with our irrational Cold War obsession with “international communism.” Irrational, as President Richard Nixon acknowledged when he embraced détente with the Soviet communists, toasted China’s fierce communist Mao Tse-tung and then escalated the war against “communist” Vietnam and neutral Cambodia.

It was always a lie and our leaders knew it, but that did not give them pause. Both Johnson and Nixon make it quite clear on their White House tapes that the mindless killing, McNamara’s infamous body count, was about domestic politics and never security.

The lies are clearly revealed in the Pentagon Papers study that McNamara commissioned, but they were made public only through the bravery of Daniel Ellsberg. Yet when Ellsberg, a former Marine who had worked for McNamara in the Pentagon, was in the docket facing the full wrath of Nixon’s Justice Department, McNamara would lift not a finger in his defense. Worse, as Ellsberg reminded me this week, McNamara threatened that if subpoenaed to testify at the trial by Ellsberg’s defense team, “I would hurt your client badly.”

Not as badly as those he killed or severely wounded. Not as badly as the almost 59,000 American soldiers killed and the many more horribly hurt. One of them was the writer and activist Ron Kovic, who as a kid from Long Island was seduced by McNamara’s lies into volunteering for two tours in Vietnam. Eventually, struggling with his mostly paralyzed body, he spoke out against the war in the hope that others would not have to suffer as he did (and still does). Meanwhile, McNamara maintained his golden silence, even as Richard Nixon managed to kill and maim millions more. What McNamara did was evil—deeply so.

By Robert Scheer, Truthdig. Posted June 27, 2009.

Americans are now $14 trillion poorer. Many who thought they were middle class have now joined the ranks of the poor.

It’s not working. The Bush-Obama strategy of throwing trillions at the banks to solve the mortgage crisis is a huge bust. The financial moguls, while tickled pink to have $1.25 trillion in toxic assets covered by the feds, along with hundreds of billions in direct handouts, are not using that money to turn around the free fall in housing foreclosures.

As The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, “The Mortgage Bankers Association cut its forecast of home-mortgage lending this year by 27% amid deflating hopes for a boom in refinancing.” The same association said that the total refinancing under the administration’s much ballyhooed Home Affordable Refinance Program is “very low.”

Aside from a tight mortgage market, the problem in preventing foreclosures has to do with homeowners losing their jobs. Here again the administration, continuing the Bush strategy, is working the wrong end of the problem. Although President Obama was wise enough to at least launch a job stimulus program, a far greater amount of federal funding benefits Wall Street as opposed to Main Street.

State and local governments have been forced into draconian budget cuts, firing workers who are among the most reliable in making their mortgage payments–when they have jobs. Yet the Obama administration won’t spend even a small fraction of what it has wasted on the banks to cover state shortfalls.

California couldn’t get the White House to guarantee $5.5 billion in short-term notes to avert severe cuts in state and local payrolls, from prison guards to schoolteachers. Compare that with the $50 billion already given to Citigroup, plus an astounding $300 billion to guarantee that institution’s toxic assets. Citigroup benefits from being a bank “too big to fail,” although through its irresponsible actions to get that large it did as much as any company to cause this mess.

How big a mess? According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent report, seven straight quarters of declining household wealth have left Americans $14 trillion poorer. Many who thought they were middle class have now joined the ranks of the poor. Food banks are strapped and welfare rolls are dramatically on the rise, as the WSJ reports, with a 27 percent year-to-year increase in Oregon, 23 percent in South Carolina and 10 percent in California. And you have to be very poor to get on welfare, thanks to President Clinton’s so-called welfare reform, which he signed into law before he ramped up the radical deregulation of the financial services industry, enabling our economic downturn.

Citigroup, the prime mover for ending the sensible restraints of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, is now a pathetic ward of the state. But back in the day President Clinton would tour the country with Citigroup founder Sandy Weill touting the wonderful work that Weill and other moguls were doing to invest in economically depressed communities. It wasn’t really happening then, and now millions of folks in those communities have seen their houses snatched from them as if they were just pieces in a game of Monopoly that Clinton and his fat-cat buddy were playing.

Once Weill got the radical deregulation law he wanted, he issued a statement giving credit: “In particular, we congratulate President Clinton, Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, NEC [National Economic Council] Chairman Gene Sperling, Under Secretary of the Treasury Gary Gensler, Assistant Treasury Secretaries Linda Robertson and Greg Baer.”

Summers is now Obama’s top economic adviser, Sperling has been appointed legal counselor at Treasury, and Gensler, a former partner in Goldman Sachs, is head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which he once attempted to prevent from regulating derivatives when it was run by Brooksley Born. Robertson worked for Summers in pushing through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which freed the derivatives market from adult supervision and contained the “Enron Loophole,” permitting that company to go wild. Robertson then became the top Washington lobbyist for Enron and was recently appointed senior adviser to Fed Chair Ben S. Bernanke. Baer went to work as a corporate counsel for Bank of America, which announced his appointment with a press release crediting him with having “coordinated Treasury policy” during the Clinton years in getting Glass-Steagall repealed. As a result of deregulation, B of A too spiraled out of control and ended up as a beneficiary of the Treasury’s welfare program.

Why was I so naive as to have expected this Democratic president to not do the bidding of the banks when the last president from that party joined the Republicans in giving the moguls everything they wanted? Please, Obama, prove me wrong.

Robert Scheer is Editor in Chief of Truthdig and author of a new book, The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America.

Robert Scheer, TruthDig, June 25, 2009

It’s not working. The Bush-Obama strategy of throwing trillions at the banks to solve the mortgage crisis is a huge bust. The financial moguls, while tickled pink to have $1.25 trillion in toxic assets covered by the feds, along with hundreds of billions in direct handouts, are not using that money to turn around the free fall in housing foreclosures.

As The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, “The Mortgage Bankers Association cut its forecast of home-mortgage lending this year by 27% amid deflating hopes for a boom in refinancing.” The same association said that the total refinancing under the administration’s much ballyhooed Home Affordable Refinance Program is “very low.”

Aside from a tight mortgage market, the problem in preventing foreclosures has to do with homeowners losing their jobs. Here again the administration, continuing the Bush strategy, is working the wrong end of the problem. Although President Obama was wise enough to at least launch a job stimulus program, a far greater amount of federal funding benefits Wall Street as opposed to Main Street.

State and local governments have been forced into draconian budget cuts, firing workers who are among the most reliable in making their mortgage payments—when they have jobs. Yet the Obama administration won’t spend even a small fraction of what it has wasted on the banks to cover state shortfalls.

California couldn’t get the White House to guarantee $5.5 billion in short-term notes to avert severe cuts in state and local payrolls, from prison guards to schoolteachers. Compare that with the $50 billion already given to Citigroup, plus an astounding $300 billion to guarantee that institution’s toxic assets. Citigroup benefits from being a bank “too big to fail,” although through its irresponsible actions to get that large it did as much as any company to cause this mess.

How big a mess? According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent report, seven straight quarters of declining household wealth have left Americans $14 trillion poorer. Many who thought they were middle class have now joined the ranks of the poor. Food banks are strapped and welfare rolls are dramatically on the rise, as the WSJ reports, with a 27 percent year-to-year increase in Oregon, 23 percent in South Carolina and 10 percent in California. And you have to be very poor to get on welfare, thanks to President Clinton’s so-called welfare reform, which he signed into law before he ramped up the radical deregulation of the financial services industry, enabling our economic downturn.

Read More Here

Published on Saturday, May 2, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Published on Wednesday, April 22, 2009 by TruthDig.com

Found this cubic zirconia on Truthdig: ‘Creepy’ Karl Rove on Meghan McCain’s Twitter Trail:

You know a social networking trend has gone too far when: (1) Karl Rove has caught on, and (2) Karl Rove attempts to “friend” you—or, in Meghan McCain’s unenviable case, follow you on Twitter. Ew.

Ew? Not sure if it was Robert Sheer, Zuade Kaufman or someone else who wrote that, but ‘ew’ speaks volumes about their maturity level. The image forming in my mind: a 13 year old girl with friends says, “Oh my God, Karl Rove is, like, sooooo creepy!” followed by “Ewwwww!” in unison and then lots of giggles. Heh.

Truthdig then cites McCain at The Daily Beast:

Karl Rove follows me on Twitter. That’s creepy. I joined Twitter a few months ago; so far, it has been a liberating way to transition from political to personal blogging. It’s allowed me to share the less-serious aspects and humorously uncensored moments of my life. But there’s also been a downside: I am now being followed by Karl Rove, and my local sheriff, and God knows how many other political pundits. We need to take Twitter back from the creepy people.

Yep. The giggling 13 year olds image has become vivid. I guess McCain just can’t STAND that guy Rove because he, like, keeps following her on Twitter and stuff. 

In an interesting turn, McCain then talks about how SHE has explored Rove’s Twitter feed:

On the surface, Karl Rove’s Twitter feed intrigues me. Here’s a guy who for years has been perceived as some kind of inaccessible man-behind-the-curtain figure. And now he Tweets numerous times a day. I’ve never met him in person, which only makes our Twitter relationship even weirder. And to be honest, I find Rove’s Tweets boring. Sometimes he takes questions; other times he talks about his appearances on cable news and other shows. But he doesn’t say anything substantive. If I had to guess, I’d say Rove has a “ghost Twitterer” (as in a ghost writer) or an assistant updating his feed for him.

Oddly enough, Rove’s Tweets seem to reveal a softer side to him. Call it savvy marketing, but I find it disingenuous.

Wow, she’s been doing an awful lot of thinking about Rove. I’m finding it hard to imagine that Rove has spent as much time (if any) exploring McCain’s Twitter feed. Maybe Rove isn’t as interested in McCain as she seems to believe. Wait a sec. Obsession over someone who pays no attention to you… isn’t that kinda creepy??

Posted on Mar 31, 2009, www.truthdig.com

AP photo / Mary Altaffer

Toxic schmoxic: The ABC news ticker in New York’s Times Square on March 23, a day when the Dow average surged nearly 500 points.

By Robert Scheer

The good news on the government’s “No Banker Left Behind” program is that according to the special inspector general’s report on Tuesday, the total handout to date is still less than 3 trillion dollars. It’s only 2.98 trillion to be precise, an amount six times greater than will be spent by federal, state and local governments this year on educating the 50 million American children in elementary and secondary schools. 

The bad news is that even greater amounts of money are to be thrown down what has to be the world record for rat holes.

Where did the money go? Almost all of it went to the bankers and stockbrokers who got us into this mess by insisting that the complex-by-design derivatives they trafficked in should not be regulated by government since they were private transactions between consenting professionals. Sort of like a lap dance: If it doesn’t work out, that’s the problem of the parties involved and no concern of the government. 

For the government to intervene would have created “legal uncertainty” in the derivatives market, an argument that a Republican-dominated Congress and President Clinton bought in authorizing the Commodity Futures Modernization Act in December of 2000. That law brought “legal certainty” to the market, a phrase that Lawrence Summers, then Clinton’s secretary of the treasury and now Barack Obama’s top White House economics adviser, deployed incessantly as a calming mantra as the financial derivatives market swirled out of control.

Now Summers and the other finance gurus who move so easily from Wall Street to Pennsylvania Avenue assure us that those professionals who made the toxic swap deals are too big to fail and must be entrusted with 3 trillion of our dollars to save themselves from disaster. And thanks to the laws they wrote, the bankers are likely to be covered for their socially destructive behavior by a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Well, maybe not all of them. A shudder must have run through the former Wall Street buddies of Bernie Madoff—once the highly respected chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange—when Inspector General Neil Barofsky warned on Tuesday that “we are looking at the potential exposure of hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money lost to fraud.”

How naive. The fraud no doubt has occurred and will occur again, but the exposure part is more questionable, if by that is meant bringing the criminals to account. As opposed to welfare cheats who end up imprisoned over scams that involve hundreds of dollars, these guys have brilliant lawyers who tell them how to steal legally when it comes to billions in fraud.

But most likely the white-collar criminals, if they are high enough up the food chain, will not even be quizzed about their activities. As the independent Congressional Oversight Panel has reported, there has been no serious accounting of the bailout money. It took major pressure from a Congress reacting to an outraged public to discover that AIG, in addition to handing out hundreds of millions in bonuses to the very hustlers who created the firm’s swindles, was a conduit for at least $70 billion in taxpayer money to reimburse the banks and stockbrokers who got us into this crisis with their bad bets. 

No surprise there, given the incestuous world of finance, where the revolving doors between the Treasury Department, the Fed and executive offices in the industry have been swinging throughout both Republican and Democratic administrations. As a result, those orchestrating the bailout and those grabbing the money are for the most part friends and former colleagues, with enormous respect for each other but not for the American taxpayer and homeowner. Or for the autoworkers who had nothing to do with creating this problem but stand to lose their retiree health benefits and pensions if the Obama administration goes though with its threat to use bankruptcy to discharge GM and Chrysler from their obligations to their workers.  Why float a company like AIG to the tune of $170 billion to keep that massive conglomerate from bankruptcy but balk at a much smaller commitment to keep GM solvent?

The money involved in the auto bailout is chump change compared with what Wall Street got, and it is far better spent. As opposed to the financial high rollers richly rewarded for crawling in and out of balance sheets, the folks who crawl in and out of cars along an assembly line are left with permanent aching backs and hard-won health care and retirement plans about to disappear through their company’s bankruptcy. Where’s their bonus package? 

Osama Bin Ladin!! Ole buddy, Ole pal, Ole chum of mine!!

How the hell are ya?? Read much of that koran lately? How are the friends and family?

Hey, How are the martyrs? Getting good training I suppose and surely you must have some good plans in the works.

Look!! I am an American soldier. I served, I went and I fought against your Al Qaeda and other Muslim cults. You are my sworn enemy and I despise all that you stand for. You represent nothing but tyranny, evil and a psychotic outlook on life.

In a nutshell (pun intended), you and yours are theological failures.

However and what I’m about to say is going to make Al Qaeda and some Americans cringe. And believe me when I say “cringe”.

It is not a hidden secret that some Americans admire you and take your side. I wonder though, does the ACLU have a banner on a Mexican or Islamic website.. Time will tell!!!

If you still don’t get the picture, “I am an American Soldier who would kill you on the spot and slit your throat if need be”. Many Americans do not understand the purpose of the American soldier until they become needy of his or her service and while many Americans think that killing your enemy is inhumane or not American like, it is an action required by our Constitution and our free way of life.

It is called “democracy.”

There is one thing and only one thing that al Qaeda and the American Soldier have in common and that is to fight and engage in battle that will define the purpose of freedom and 9/11. We, as Real and True Americans, know al Qaeda has an undeniable hatred of the United States and Israel. Which, by the way, this all too common hatred has become so comical, that al Qaeda itself should have it’s agents book them on any one of the talk shows we have here in America. As you know talk shows look for new friends and ratings.

Bin Laden attacked America on his own. Any other assumption is sick at best. He was successful on 9/11 not because the United States wasn’t paying attention, but enjoying that success at the hands of al Qaeda and al Qaeda alone and without any interference or input. However, some covert American supporters of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda frequently acknowledge the terrorists as “fellow humans” and “we forced the hand of Al Qaeda”.

I.Q. stands for what?

So, as Al Qaeda gets accolades from Americans partying in support of terrorism, be it known that Al Qaeda is dedicated to it’s mission with no deviations and no other “cause”. bin Laden only works with and accepts those whose only influence is Islam and of course those who are in need of some or many virgins.

Some Americans would love nothing more than to kiss bin Laden on his filthy ass and say “I’m Sorry”. To that extent understand this, we know who you are and so do they.

“Hence” my respect for Al Qaeda in a blink of the eye. They fight for one “cause” as psychotic as it may be. Unlike some in the United States who only fight for greed, public relations and symptomatic urges of notoriety. When the wind blows, they blow with it.

Al Qaeda,  like the American Soldier, does not approve of or appreciate traitors or they who wait to see if there is room on the winning team after the battle is fought.

As for the traitors who hide behind words and status make no mistake, we do know who you are and to prove it here is a partial list:

Terrorists of the world, are you getting this? If not, here are some who wish  to align with your thinking and mind you, they can be bought.

Here ya go:

- Katie Couric “So, they haven’t been able to confirm reports that Saddam was taken to Tikrit, and then Mosul, and then hopefully to Syria.”

Every time this witch goes on the air, she stands to flaw…

- Gore Vidal “I don’t see us winning the war. We have made enemies of 1 billion muslims.”

Oh, we’ll win the war and hopefully you’ll be collateral damage. 1 billion muslims ain’t so bad considering we have just as many terrorists in and around Los Angeles..

- Dan Rather “Everyone we met in Baghdad talks the Saddam line, including these women. They are Iraq’s version of liberated women, the educated elite of Baghdad: teachers and doctors, architects and diplomats who meet once a month at this art gallery and restaurant. They are all Saddam supporters, and they don’t trust the American government.”

Why should anyone trust America? With you on the television it would be hard to imagine anything that makes sense…

- Howard Dean “The next president will need to undo the work of this band of radicals currently controlling our foreign policy- who view the Middle East as a laboratory for their experiments in democracy-building, where no such traditions exist.”

Of course. Howard Dean knows all about experiments. I am sure his parents told him the truth.. He ran for President of the United States and lost because there are a few smart folks who knew that he would allow foreign countries to control our foreign policy..

- Sen. Robert “KKK” Byrd ” Today I weep for my country. No more is the image of America one of strong yet benevolent peacekeeper… We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance.”

I got your arrogance right here!! Stay put as I weep for your demise…

- Sen. Teddy Kennedy ” Instead of persuading the dissenters at home and abroad, the administration by it’s harsh rhetoric is driving the wedge deeper.”

What can I say about Kennedy? He is from a family of thugs and crooks….

- Rep. Nancy Pelosi ” I have absolutley no regret about my vote on this war… We could have probably brought down that statue for a lot less.”

Not even worthy of a symbolic response, funny or factual!!! She is just pathetic and un American…… You can’t prove me wrong on your best day!!

*****Update on Pelosi, she actually called the CIA a bunch of liars*****

- Rep. “Baghdad” Jim McDermott ” The President of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war.”

At least he spoke the truth to the Real and True Americans. He only lied to those who can’t see straight…

- Rep. Charlie Rangel ” I just don’t believe that you bomb women and children in order to enforce” the U.N. resolution on Iraq.

You know Rangel, you pathetic racist, anti American thuglet, your lips tease the hell out of me…..

- Rep. Pete Stark ” I think unleashing 3,000 smart bombs against the city of Baghdad in the first several days of the war.. to me, if those were unleashed against the San Fransisco Bay area, I would call that an act of extreme terrorism.”

I would call that ” a day of sanity” and “patriotic duty”.

- Sen. Patty “Osama Mama” Murray ” Osama bin Laden has “been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven’t done that. How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?”

Another politician who reads script and then tries to explain what she knows nothing about.. Did she rip Clinton during his tenure as President for lobbing missiles anywhere and everywhere hunting for bin Laden?

- Rep. Marcy Kaptur ” Fighting for oil and those dictatorships that prop up the politics of oil is not worthy of the loss of one American life.”

Fighting for oil!! A common statement associated with due ignorance and lack of any intellectual balance.. Period!! These are the same people who would much rather be attacked and talk our way out of it versus preempting a breach in national security…. Kaptur you idiotic symbol of failure, WE ARE NOT FIGHTING FOR OIL…..

- Ramsey Clark former attorney general ” Far from being a threat to the United States, or any other people, Iraq has been a victim of U.S. aggression for 12 years.”

Another lazy ass!! Knows nothing of what he thinks he is saying…. Listen up Ramsey, go to Kuwait and ask them “who has been the victim(s) over there”.

- Rep. Dennis Kucinich ” Unilateral military action by the United States against Iraq is unjustified, unwarranted and illegal.”

And what would you have done?? Met them at a trade show??

- Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee ” The president has demonstrated his resolve to go to war, but has provided no reason to do so at this time, and no reason why war is the only answer.”

This simpleminded bitch floats like air!! Enough said. She would rather we wait to see if any relationships became stronger after 9/11 instead of going out to get the terrorists. Oh wait a minute, this is no longer a “war on terror” it is now a war on American values and honor…

- Rep. Jim Moran ” If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq we would not be doing this.”

Very insightful!! I am sorry we are friends and allies with Israel. The U.S. and Israel are the targets, not the other way around…

- Bill Moyers ” I put this flag pin on as a modest riposte to men with flags in their lapels who shoot missiles from the safety of Washington think tanks, or argue that sacrifice is good as long as they don’t have to make it… I put it on to remind myself that not every patriot thinks we should do to the people of Baghdad what bin Laden did to us.”

This is probably one of the most idiotic statements yet.. But who knows, there are a few more…. Moyers is absolute proof of failed birth control. Do his parents know?

Okay!! Let me stop here for a minute.

So far, has anybody seen or recognized any common ground yet in referencing the names and quotes listed so far?

Here’s a hint.

Liberals and socialist “brains” may want to get the crying towel for there are many to follow…

- Jesse Jackson ” When there is no hope left, we fight to reflect our emptiness and lack of vision”.

Another pair of witless lips on two legs… Lack of Vision!! Hope left when you said “You wanted Obamas nuts” and when you spoke..

- Jimmy Carter “As a Christian and as a president who was severely provoked by international crisis, I became thoroughly familiar with the principals of a just war, and it is clear that a substantially unilateral attack on Iraq does not meet these standards”.

Which is why the hostages captured and held in Iran were left for dead, BY YOU, CARTER.. The only standards you know is how big your next “silver platter” of a “habitat” is going to be….

- Jessica Lange “I despise him (President Bush).. It is an embarrassing time to be an American. It really is. It’s humiliating.”

You pathetic proof of incest, read the definition of “actor”. You must be the source of information to Obamas wife. Embarrassing to be an American? You twit!! Courage to use that mouth to get you jobs in Hollywood, (get it? but no courage to offer yourself up as one of the many virgins your boyfriends in wrapped heads might be blowing themselves up for. Stupid me!! Hollywood? Virgins? My mistake!!

- Ed Asner “I feel that George Bush’s actions are desecrating the America that I grew up in and believed in. He is making us an imperialist government. He is choosing to replace heads of state and government he doesn’t like.”

Hey buttwipe, you wouldn’t have a problem “portraying” the president if it was to add a few million to your bank account, would you? Oh and an extra million if you and hollywood decided to bomb Iraq in a matinee.. His AARP membership is almost up!!

- George Clooney “I believe he (President Bush) thinks this is a war that can be won, but there is no such thing anymore. We can’t beat anyone anymore.”

That womb from which you came, was it drug infested when you came out?? You lo-life son of a bitch!! I am an American Soldier and American Soldiers WIN!! I dare you to say “we can’t beat anyone anymore” to the face of an American Soldier. I DARE YOU!! No matter your reference you PATHETIC wannabe, I DARE YOU!!!!

- Woody Harrelson “This is a racist and imperialist war. The warmongers who stole the White House (you call them “hawks”, but I would never disparage such a fine bird) have hijacked a nation’s grief and turned it into a perpetual war on any non-white country they choose to describe as terrorist.”

“They choose to describe as terrorist”? What were they, stunt doubles? I’d say this freak came from a drug infested womb but I can’t. This “actor” takes in more crack than air…. possibly via the “crack”. You kiss-ass repeat of a penile enlargement that went terribly wrong!!!

- Natalie Maines (Dixie Chicks) “Just so you know, we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.”

Like you are worthy of any opinions. That trash can under your nose speaks volumes of your upbringing and your senseless nature..

- Janeane Garofalo “You know what is good about these Dixie Chicks burnings or bashings? It’s a wonderful way for really stupid people to hook up. They meet, they throw some things on the fire, they Talk about Vin Diesel, they tell stories about who their favorite FOX anchor is, they exchange phone numbers and in some cases led to marriage.”

Thus the reason for “Say No To Drugs”..

- Sean Penn “My trip here is to personally record the human face of the Iraqi people so that their blood, along with that of American soldiers, would not be on my own hands.”

Can’t say enough about this piece of shit. He slobbers too much not to mention he is anal retentive but being a hollywood puppet, maybe not..

- Tim Robbins “I’m against this whole, “Let’s bomb a new country because things aren’t going our way.” It’s the cost of human lives I resent. To put American soldiers in harm’s way and to do everything to change the subject so that Republicans can keep control of the house.”

Think about this whole statement word for word. It reeks of “follow me through the tunnel”. “We have no enemies never mind a need for the Constitution..

- Susan Sarandon “Cloaked in patriotism and our doctrine of spreading democracy throughout the world, our fundamentalism is business, the unfettered spread of our economic interests throughout the globe. Our resistance to this war should be resistance to profit at the cost of human life.”

Another of hollywood’s crack addicts. Cloaked in patriotism? Resistance to profit? That hollywood trash is spread throughout the world and we should resist profit at the cost of human life? Wow!! I’d like to see where that script came from.. May I answer that?…………….

- Chrissie Hynde ” Have we gone to war yet? We (expletive) deserve to get bombed. Bring it on…. Let’s get rid of all the economic (expletive) this country represents! Bring it on, I hope the Muslims win.”

This broad deserves a spit in the face and then some!! “I hope the Muslims win”!! bin Laden, are you listening? American Soldiers, are you listening? This is good proof Covert American sleeper cells exist. She actually has no American value period. Al Qaeda, where are you?? Remember this name CHRISSIE HYNDE!!!!!

- Barbara Streisand ” Saddam Hussein did not bomb the World Trade Center… Ignore the obvious influence on the Bush administration of such special interests as the oil industry, the chemical companies, the logging industry, just to name a few.”

Okay!! Streisand is just plain stupid…..

- Peter Arnett “Clearly, the American war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces…. And I personally do not understand how that happened, because I’ve been here many times and in my commentaries on television I would tell the Americans about the determination of the government, and the willingness to fight for their country.”

What?? The government of Iraq was Saddaam, Uday and Qusay Hussein. A father and two sons. They were the government stupid.. It is called a “regime” and they were not allowing the Iraqi people to vote. The Iraqi willingness to fight for their country was everything  like the Desert Storm of 1991. Iraqi military forces were surrendering by the hundreds if not thousands. Why? Because they did not want to lose their lives for the Hussein family. What part of this is written in Arabic?

- Ted Turner “We’re trying to get one man right? And we’re going to kill tens of thousands of people to get him. It seems like a pretty inefficient way to do things.”

Actually dipshit, we were not “trying” anything. We Were Going To Get Him And Others And We Did. And thousands of people did not die in the process. It was after the fact that thousands began to die at the hands of al Qaeda and the sunni insurgency. It is called gorilla warfare. Ineffeciency is when self absorbed pukes such as yourself are not at the receiving end of a “scope”.

- Leslie Stahl “How did we get to a place where much of the world thinks that George Bush is more evil than Saddam Hussein? How did this happen?’

Well, I don’t know! Could it be that President George Bush did not dwell on ratings and poll numbers instead fortifying national security with actions required to maintain the safety and security of the United States? Could it be that Bush and many Real and True Americans knew that al Qaeda was already in Iraq? An answer to that question requires research and we all know bitches like you don’t do the research and if you do it is done by a paid public relations puppet.

- Michael Moore “We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for ficticious reasons. Whether it is the ficticion (sic) of duct tape or the ficticious (sic) of orange alerts, we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush.”

Here you have a repugnant, ugly, lying identity thief who has made movies using false information and facts, misleads individuals with made up perceptions and most of all uses people. Literally!! If there was any one individual who could be a well rounded poster child for “living proof of life after death”, this is it. But he is not alone.. Moore advocates the presumption that America is home to the “one eyed monster.” He advocates anti-patriotism to the extreme.. This guys birth should be deemed “inappropriate.”  To those of you who admire this waste, have at it for you represent the “intellectual voice” on free marijuana….

- Martin Sheen “By some demented form of logic, the men, women, and children of Iraq are relegated to “collateral damage” as the dogs of war slouch towards Baghdad.”

A quote by a “character” whose only purpose is to “act” as though he knows what he blabs about. You freakin womb reject, I am one of those slouching “dogs of war”. You can “act” like an American Soldier and make millions off that “honor” title, but rest assured knowing that this dog would have no problem spitting in your face. You and your entire family are as American as bin Laden. Do you have the courage to stand before a veteran and tell him or her that they do not have defined purpose? You and Moore do not want to be standing around a Soldier when he or she comes back home. You would not like the reception…..

- Harry Belafonte “Colin Powell’s committed to come into the house of the master. When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture.”

I”ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this womb reject is absolute proof of a black racist. Not to mention he is an abuser and user of America and her prosperity. He is the “perpetrator of fraud” at it’s best. Conferring and laughing and giggling with America’s enemies is not something I take lightly but I am sure his friendships with our enemies is in his eyes a “highlight.” I would have buried him in the pasture….

- Robert Scheer “Imperialist greed is what “regime change” in Iraq and “anticipatory self-defense” are all about, and all of the rest of the Bush administration’s talk about security and democracy is a bunch of malarkey.”

Just a guess, but Scheer no longer appears to be “anal receptive”. I guess the good ole days are “behind him.” This low life wants to talk about malarkey. OK!! Let’s talk!! Malarkey is when you talk without purpose and your words are mixed with “duh” and “nonsense”……

- Jane Fonda on Operation Iraqi freedom: What it’s going to mean for our stability as a nation, for terrorism, for the economy, I can’t imagine. I think the entire world is going to be against us. On America: “I don’t know if a country where the people are so ignorant of reality and of history, if you can call that a free world.”

What?? This, coming from a two legged piece of shit.. “Stability as a nation”? You, who admired and sat with and screwed the enemy while American Soldiers were dying in Vietnam.. I know what stability means to you. The white flag!!! A country of people who are ignorant?? Again, what?? You freeloadin bitch!! You are supposed to sit on the pot, not do a headstand….

- Walter Cronkite “I have not changed my mind one iota. We should not be in Iraq without United Nations support”.

You sir, are sucking down way too much Geritol. We had U.N. support….

- Mary McGrory “Among people I know, nobody was for the war.”

Hey dudette, Nobody was for the war. You are right!! But, a lot more understood the relevence and the purpose and supported the war because of it’s National Security risk assessment. Nobody likes war, but thankfully we don’t have many of you to carry the white flag…..

- Helen Thomas “I think the people are standing mute, and I remember the rabbi in the March on Washington program. He said that the greatest sin of all in the Nazi era was silence. He had been in a concentration camp for many years. People have got to go, they must speak up now or forever hold their peace.”

Helen, Helen, Helen!! Recently you asked Obama a question and referred to the “so called terrorists”. You never really explained what you meant when you said “so called terrorists”. With that in mind, I’ll forego holding my peace while I continue to fight for it as it appears you and your like would prefer it handed to you.. I respect you as an elderly woman, but there are limits….

- Kim Jong-il of North Korea – Helped take heat off Saddam by issuing threats against U.S. benefactor.

Hey Kim, any more rockets to toss our way?

- Fidel Castro of Cuba – Exploits the global attention on Iraq by crushing dissent at home.

- Hugo Chavez of Venezuala – Exploits the focus on Iraq by abetting terrorism in Columbia and elsewhere.

Go Figure!! Another idiot aligned with hollywood and vice versa. His days are numbered anyway!!

- Moammar Gadhafi of Libya – Exports Saddam-style imperialist oppression throughout Africa, which he views as his personal playpen.

Go Figure this one! Like Libya or Africa for that matter has any global purpose except to take money and handouts for a lifeless demographic..

- Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran – U.S. leaders are a “stupid lot” who launched one of the “dirtiest wars” without “taking into account any humanitarian principals.”

Like these ragheads know anything about “humanitarian principals”.

- Bashar al-Assad of Syria – Saddam’s good friend and neighbor and fellow terrorist leader.

And the creepiest of them all. His silence and low key governance should be followed second by second….

- Hans Blix – The Inspector Clouseau of the United Nations.

- Gerhard Schroeder of Germany – Socialist narrowly re-elected on anti-Bush appeasement platform…

- Vladimer Putin of Russia – Helped arm and protect Saddam despite his “friendship” with President Bush..

Vladi baby, to be or not to be KGB. That is the question. Got vodka??

- Kofi Annan U.N. – Still insists Operation Iraqi Freedom needs his permission.

Or so he thought. He is just a vistor to the United States. You DO NOT dictate when we defend our interests and the interests of others. Mexico is the only country we allow to dictate our national security and our laws.. Nobody else!!

- Jean Chretien of Canada – Refused to join U.S., Britain and Australia. He’s more French than Canadian, our Canadian friends insist.

Their time is coming!!! Hockey season isn’t over!! Or is it??

- Vincente Fox of Mexico – Encouraged appeasement demonstrations against his “pal” President Bush.

Mexico. The country or slab of land that is cheap, useless and lawless.. Take money from the United States and run.. I mean illegally across our border and then don’t support the United States in time of war.. Typical Mexican banana eatin, bean fartin mentality..

- Jacques Chirac of France “Our position is no matter what the circumstances, France will vote “no”.

We should have just let France fall many years ago….

There you have it ladies and gentlemen of America. This list is known as the United Nations of Weasels. It is actually a complete deck of playing cards. When I got this deck of cards I thought, “where was this deck during the election? Then I remembered the truth and facts hurt..

The comments below each individual and quote are my own interpretation based on the truth and factual research…. In my opinion, each one should be “hung out to dry” because of their anti-American vocabulary and because they are The Covert Operators Working with Americas Enemies.. The facts speak for themselves..

There are many more American names missing but we will catch up to them in a short time.. Believe it!!!!

If you want a deck of these playing cards, just go to NewsMax.com or call; 1-800-485-4350.

Great job NewsMax.. How about a kickback!! Kidding!!!

Veteran Journalist Robert Scheer, of TruthDig, is a guest on Democracy Now! and discusses the AIG Bonuses, the “Backdoor Bailout” and Why Obama Should Fire Geithner, Summers. This interview, seriously, is a must see.

“Perp Walks Instead of Bonuses“:

There must be a criminal investigation of the AIG debacle, and it looks as if New York’s top lawman is on the case. The collusion to save this toxic company in order to salvage the rogue financiers who conspired to enrich themselves by impoverishing millions is being revealed as the greatest financial scandal in U.S. history. Instead of taking bonuses, the culprits should be taking perp walks… Read this excellent piece.

Part 1:

Part 2:

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